


Tenebrae (Golijov, 2002, for String Quartet)

by airdeari



Series: Orchestra AUs (multi-fandom) [2]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Orchestra, Alternate Universe - String Quartet, Footnotes, M/M, Multi, Probably more of a focus on Promptis than the other boys but I'll get 'em all kissing don't worry, Slow Burn, i guess
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-19
Updated: 2018-07-09
Packaged: 2019-04-04 10:53:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 17,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14018715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/airdeari/pseuds/airdeari
Summary: VIOLIN I: Noctis Lucis Caelum (FR)VIOLIN II: Prompto Argentum (FR)VIOLA: Gladiolus Amicitia (SR)VIOLONCELLO: Ignis Scientia (G1)In which four college boys pack themselves into a practice room once a week to goof off and bicker, and call it "rehearsal".





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Greetings, former music major here, ready to do what I realized I do best: make painstakingly detailed orchestra AUs. Since we're in the thick of my area of expertise this time (string instruments) I thought I'd make things more accessible by adding in footnotes if needed (but they're mostly for flavor text—don't worry about reading them if you're not interested). Most of them have YouTube links for reference, and I thought it'd be fun if I also made a Spotify playlist out of the pieces as well. [So I did!](https://open.spotify.com/user/1258090366/playlist/0rmk2nIPt791MZxENMrAkD?si=K5RPEKlpRmiRYYxdaKZwww) You might get spoilers in the fun format of songs I'm going to reference in the next few chapters. The first piece on the playlist is the namesake of this fic, and the piece that the boys are going to learn to play together. Enjoy.

Prompto choked back a little noise of hurt and forced the air out as just a mildly disappointed sigh when he found his name followed by a _Violin II_ on the bulletin board outside Dr. Amicitia’s studio. He knew it wasn’t going to be like high school orchestra, or even regionals, where he’d always been the big fish in the pond. Conservatory was going to be different. Conservatory wasn’t exactly a big pond, going by numbers, but the pond was full of sharks.

And then he realized he had more than a passing recognition of the name of the shark next to _Violin I_.

He knew it in full from the lesson schedule Dr. Amicitia had emailed out the other day. Noctis Lucis Caelum was one of the other incoming freshmen in the Amicitia violin studio this year. The handful of new violinists had already met up and exchanged numbers, though Prompto didn’t know much about them individually.

Except for Noctis, who had played his orchestral audition in the slot after Prompto’s.

“I buttered them up for you,” Prompto had joked once he shut the door behind him, wearing a sheepish grin and still shaking from the pounding his heart had done inside that massive concert hall—he’d never done an orchestral audition in a concert hall before, it had always been spare classrooms and things, and this was so big and he didn’t even know where the judges were or who was judging and there were so many seats out there in the audience, he wondered what it would be like when they were all full, and the sound his violin made when he first swept his bow across the string was so mesmerizing and echoing that he forgot how to shift to a high E (it’s a _harmonic_ [1], Prompto, it’s second nature, it should be right there in your hands!)—and, well, he’d only have to deal with the seating that piss-poor performance netted him for a semester, anyway.

Noctis was holding his violin in his left hand, bow dangling from his finger, and with his right, he idly fanned his neck with the printer copies of the excerpts. His face was dark—everything about him was dark: his hair, his clothes, his gorgeous instrument, which had the kind of depth to its grain that made it look hundreds of years old, and maybe it was. But when Prompto spoke, the tension left him all at once, and he broke into a smile.

“Thanks,” he exhaled with a hint of a laugh. “I’m gonna need it.”

And that made Prompto feel better, too. His hands weren’t shaking by the time he crouched by the empty case he’d left out in the hall, carefully laying his fiddle in the foam. He was reaching for the rosin cloth to clean off the strings when he heard Noctis playing.

His first thought was _shit, they all heard me playing_. His second thought was _holy fucking shit, Noctis is really good._

Prompto had been proud of himself in the practice rooms because he’d nailed every shift, his tuning locked in, and his bowing precise. Half of it had come undone in the audition, of course. Hearing Noctis play was like suddenly realizing that everything he’d been practicing had been wrong. Not the literal wrong pieces, but they might as well have been.

He thought orchestral excerpts were supposed to be boring, so why did it sound like Noctis was playing a concerto[2]?

There was _music_ happening in that concert hall. Sure, Prompto had gotten louder with the crescendos on that run like it said on the page, but with Noctis the music was swelling. Prompto found himself leaning forward into the motion, no matter how many walls stood between him and the sound.

A couple of violinists, too relaxed in their posture and in their conversation to be anything less than upperclassmen, started gossiping in hushed, excited tones that this was the hotshot violinist that “Clarus” had told them about. The upperclassmen all called him “Clarus”. One of the other freshmen had started saying it, too. Nope, Prompto had seen the doctoral degree hanging in the studio when they met last year at college auditions, this was Dr. Amicitia, he worked real hard for that title and Prompto wasn’t not gonna be the guy to take it away from him. He was and always would be Dr. Amicitia.

Wait.

Prompto leaned closer to the list on Dr. Amicitia’s bulletin board until he could see the ridges where ink had wobbled over the minute texture of the printer paper. And it still said Amicitia. _Gladiolus Amicitia, Viola_.

So he was in a quartet with his professor’s son. His extremely talented and definitely really intimidating built-like-a-bodybuilder professor? That guy’s _son_.

Maybe playing second fiddle to the likes of those probable powerhouses was a blessing in disguise. Maybe, if this cellist Ignis Scientia was of the same caliber as freshman prodigy Noctis and Doctor Junior, he’d have his work cut out for him just trying to keep up, even as just Violin II.

With a modicum of something akin to dread, he remembered a vibration he’d ignored during Music Theory, just before coming here to check the results, and he pulled his phone out of his pocket. It was exactly what he’d expected.

_Hey it’s noctis. Did you see the quartets? We’re in one together :)_

He weighed his options for a casual reply. Maybe a friendly “ _yeah thats awesome! do you know anything about the other guys???_ ” Or perhaps a more direct “ _yeah im scared shitless! are you aware that our violist is probably a direct descendant of our teacher???_ ”

He went with the friendly one. Bubbles popped up on the other side of his screen almost immediately as Noctis composed a response of his own.

_I met iggy i ran into him at orientation. He’s new here too lol_

“Iggy”. Alright. Prompto couldn’t say “Clarus”, and he wasn’t sure he was going to be able to call Dr. Amicitia’s son anything other than “Dr. Amicitia’s son”, but if Noctis was referring to Ignis as “Iggy” already, and he was another freshman, then Prompto could manage at least “Ignis”. Maybe even work his way up to an “Iggy” if he wasn’t too intimidatingly good at the cello.

Though he was no longer typing, Prompto was still so focused on his phone’s screen that he walked right past the staircase that led to the ground entrance of the music building, and ended up in front of a set of ornate, wooden double doors, behind which he could hear a clarinet echoing through warmups. He realized he’d stumbled upon the smaller concert hall that the other violinists in the studio had raved about for its sweet, bright acoustics, perfectly suited for quieter solo instruments like the violin. They called her Lucy for short.

Lucy, Prompto realized as his gaze drifted to the golden letters hanging over the door, was short for _The Lucis Caelum Recital Hall_.

Prompto also discovered, during the first orchestra rehearsal, that Ignis “Iggy” Scientia was not a freshman. He was new to Insomnia Conservatory because he was a first-year graduate student. From England.

They had their first quartet meeting after orchestra. After sleeping through a midday alarm, Prompto had only just picked up his music from the library fifteen minutes before[3] he booked it to the rehearsal hall for orchestra. Everything was going to be fine. Prompto was just going to die, that’s all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1 **harmonics:** A fun technique available to string players that relies on physics. If you take a vibrating medium making a sound and halve its length, then it will sound exactly one octave higher. Halve it again and you've gone another octave up. Other fractions create other intervals. On string instruments, if you just touch, but don't press, at that harmonic point, you get a really cool ethereal sound. The shift (a change in hand position on a string instrument) Prompto missed was to the primary halfway-point harmonic on his E string, one that should be pretty familiar to a violinist of his level. Any time you see the soloist in [this piece](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lU6k9XNsCA) stop vibrating her hand at the end of a line, she's hitting a harmonic - the first one is about 36 seconds in. [return to text]
> 
> 2 **concerto:** A work for a solo instrument (or sometimes multiple solo instruments) backed by a full orchestra. [Here's Max Bruch's violin concerto in G minor.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxZbVwrGOrc) [return to text]
> 
> 3 **sight-reading:** Reading a piece of music for the first time, which is what Prompto is going to be doing when he gets to quartet rehearsal, and something absolutely no one should ever do at the conservatory level. Writing this gave me anxiety, but it's absolutely something I would have done as a freshman, too. The poor fool. [return to text]


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Here's the first appearance of the titular quartet.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdwQCNAY9i4)

“So, wait, I gotta ask, is it really just scordatura?”

The reason that Gladiolus Amicitia, son of the renowned violinist Dr. Clarus Amicitia, had taken up the viola instead, was apparent as soon as he walked in the doorway, or rather ducked under it. When he had first pulled out his viola for a quick tuning check, it looked like a standard 16-odd-inch instrument in his hands. It seemed suddenly larger when held propped at the edge of his left knee, close enough for Ignis to appraise its true daunting size.[1] If Gladiolus were to hold a violin on his tattooed shoulder, his fingertips pressed as close together as possible would cover more than a semitone[2] each—the instrument would be unplayable.

Prompto flinched when Gladiolus leaned his imposing figure into the neighboring space to read the sheet music on his stand. “S-sorry?” he stuttered, eyes running over his music as if he had missed something obvious, and he had.

“Is the second violin scordatura. ’Cuzza the bits where you take the low theme,” said Gladiolus, still wearing an easy grin.

Prompto sent a nervous look to Noctis first, but his eyes were occupied with adjusting his shoulder rest. He next tried a glance to Ignis, who kept his face blank as he anticipated the question the freshman was about to pose.

“What’s… scordatura?”

Ignis wasn’t pleased when he realized he’d been placed in a quartet with two freshmen for violinists, but he had been willing to give them the benefit of doubt. He no longer had any doubt.

This semester, Insomnia Conservatory had accepted three new grad students to the cello studio, Ignis included, for a total of five grad students at once. For a school with such a small post-grad population, five was a cramped number of graduate-level cellists; in comparison, the viola studio had only three, the basses two, and the combined violin studios put forward a paltry six. With those numbers, only three quartets could have a complete set of graduates. Ignis, as a newcomer with no training yet at an American conservatory, was one of the two stranded cellists shunted to a quartet of a mixed level. He had expected, at the very least, to play with all upperclassmen.

“Y’know, when you change your string tuning,” said the lone upperclassman Gladiolus, a furrow in his strong brow. “Like Bach’s fifth[3]… eh, you’re a violinist. Alright, like _Danse Macabre_ [4].”

He pronounced the French title with a thick American accent. Ignis held his tongue to keep it from clicking. Gladiolus was as knowledgeable as he could hope to expect from a violist, he reasoned.

“It’s undoubtedly scordatura,” Ignis said, when Prompto looked in alarm at his score, likely wondering if he had practiced the entire thing incorrectly prior to this rehearsal (and, even more likely, he had). “How else would you expect a violin to play a low E?”

Gladiolus quirked an eyebrow at Ignis, holding something suspicious in his eyes. “Huh,” he said, sitting back in his chair—or, rather, _chairs_ , since he had stacked two on top of each other to meet his unwieldy height. “You know this piece, too?”

Ignis’s eyebrows gave a movement of their own: quickly drawing inward, then releasing before the frown could last. “Of course,” he said. “We’re to play it, naturally I’ve familiarized myself with the music.”

He sent a glance towards the freshmen as he spoke. Having hastily adjusted his G string down to approximately E through a series of plucks with his higher E string, Prompto turned a shade even paler than before, his eyes darting over the page as if studying the second violin part would do him any favors in understanding the score. Ignis didn’t quite catch Noctis’s reaction, but he looked as though he had rolled his eyes from the way that they had suddenly ended up on the other side of the room.

“Nah, I mean,” Gladiolus said, breaking into a smug grin, “I knew it before we got the assignment. Never played it before, but I’ve been listenin’ to it for years.”

And Gladiolus, the senior, just had poor taste.

“For what purpose?” Ignis retorted.

Gladiolus kept his smile, but furrowed his brow. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked, knowing full well what it was supposed to mean.

“For new music, it’s rather bland,” Ignis said. “No departures from Romantic notions of harmony or rhythm, and while the texture presented is interesting, I don’t see why it needs twelve minutes of exploration.”

The doubled chairs creaked when Gladiolus leaned back with a scoffing laugh. “Damn, you come for Philip Glass[5] with that kinda attitude, too? This is gonna be a hell of a semester,” he said. “Let’s tune, huh?”

“Let’s do it,” sighed Noctis, offering up his A.

Noctis Lucis Caelum, Ignis had discovered, was from a long line of musical royalty here at Insomnia. A direct but distant ancestor had donated the college’s first recital hall, which bore his family name. His father, Regis Lucis Caelum, was chairman of the Board of Trustees for the conservatory. The mellow, dark tones of his open strings suggested to Ignis that his violin, too, was an heirloom from the Lucis Caelum family. He was well-cultured and well-taught; Ignis could see that from the breath and nod he gave to lead himself and Prompto into their entrance, and from the effortless singing of his first melody. Though his lead of the group was clear, technically exquisite, his face was off-puttingly deadpan the entire time. Ignis, too, found the piece boring, but, for the sake of musicality, he knew better than to let that show on his face.

Gladiolus Amicitia was as much a powerhouse on the viola as he looked as a person. Though the opening viola tremolo was for ethereal effect, Gladiolus played it with captivating precision after a solid, rhythmic cue to start the piece. His pitch and musicality were spot-on, although his tempo stretched a bit too far, even for a piece written in this century, when he was handed the melody. And, to that end, he played with entirely too much bravado (vibrato?) in those melodic sections, particularly after the clear, singing tone that the first violin had established so well.

Prompto Argentum, on the other hand, played like a second violinist at a high school level, which was what he was, without any conservatory training yet under his belt. He had to be taught how to read a tremolo between two notes[6], and he played them unmeasured rather than in even demisemiquavers[7], which caused him to lose count of his place during long passages. His lone entrances were timid if they happened at all, and he often came in with Noctis or Gladiolus when he was supposed to enter a measure earlier or later. He flubbed the tuning of any passages played on his detuned G string. He didn’t seem to notice the dynamic markings on his page, nor any of the directions to play _sul ponticello_ [8], though, to his credit, he had enough of an ear that he followed the lead of the rest of the group. His harmonics had about a seventy percent success rate in fingering, and a thirty percent rate in actually sounding without shrieking.

“So, um,” he said, breaking the silence first once they had made it through the final chord and cut off together, “Gladiolus?”

Gladiolus smirked. “Gladio’s fine.”

“Right, uh.” Prompto laid his bow across his stand to free up a hand for scratching the back of his neck. “What were you… saying about scordatura? Like, something else I could do, instead of…”

Gladio gave a soft laugh and a shrug. “I dunno, whip out a five-string[9]?” he joked. “Just didn’t think anybody’d be crazy enough to fuck with the string tuning that bad. Doesn’t sound good.”

A smirk rolled up the left side of Ignis’s face at this concession. “It doesn’t,” he agreed.

Prompto’s ankles crossed tightly. “Yeah, I’ll, I’ll definitely work on it,” he said sheepishly, staring at his wiggling toes.

“Nah, it’s not about how you played it, you’ll get there,” Gladio said, landing a clap on Prompto’s freckled shoulder. “It’s just the tone of the instrument. String ain’t made to go that low and still sound bright. Don’t make sense to write for it like that.”

“Well,” squeaked Prompto, “d’you think I could get a five-string for it? Like, from the repair shop downstairs, aren’t they supposed to have…?”

“Kid,” laughed Gladio, “you ever played a five-string?”

Prompto blinked. “No? I, uh, I’ve played viola, though, so…”

“Nah, it’s completely different.” Gladio held out his broad viola, facing the button[10] towards Prompto, and traced his finger over the bridge. “Strings are set up way off from how you’re used to. Five strings and suddenly your D’s in the middle here, your G’s all the way up here… Your bow gets all messed up if you ain’t used to it.”

“You’ve played five-string?” Noctis asked, watching Gladio’s nod with lidded eyes and only the hint of a smile. “So maybe you take that up, and Prompto can trade with you, huh?”

Gladio barked this laugh, tucking his viola back under his chin. “No way, buddy,” he said. “You’d break your little hands playin’ the tremolos in this on viola.”

Keeping the viola clamped in place with his jaw, he stretched out his muscled, tattooed left arm all the way out to the side, slowly bending his wrist back. Prompto tentatively copied the motion. Ignis saw the moment he felt the stretch: his eyes bugged out with the burn of his sore tendons. Ignis had been spared most of the repetitive fingerings required of the tremolos that plagued the second violin and viola parts.

“Should we call it here for today?” Noctis suggested, giving his shoulders a stretch of their own.

Ignis frowned, giving his slim watch a glance. “We’ve still almost ten minutes left,” he said, unable to keep the hint of skepticism from his voice.

“Not enough time to really get into anything,” Noctis said, already loosening the horsehair on his bow, “and we’ve still gotta pack up and put everything away, too.”

“And figure out what we’re gonna work on for next time,” Gladio added, “and when next time’s gonna be.”

“Two of those items take about two minutes, and the others can be accomplished via email just as easily as in person,” Ignis countered. “That leaves us with six minutes still.”

“Well,” Noctis sighed, “three of us have been rehearsing for almost three hours straight now, and Tchaik 6[11] was brutal today, so maybe six more minutes just isn’t gonna be that helpful today.”

“C’mon, we can last six more minutes,” Gladio said with a sneer a bit too cocky for being the one player who hadn’t suffered through the Tchaikovsky symphony today—he was earning his semester’s ensemble credits outside of the symphony orchestra. “Something it’s gonna help us if we hit it before we all practice on our own later.”

When he turned that cocksure grin of his to Noctis, a challenge in his dark eyes, Ignis all at once lost his animosity for the situation he had found himself in with this quartet. Sure, the players were not at his level of musicality, the immature freshmen especially, but he could turn this into a beneficial arrangement for his own development regardless by doing exactly what Gladio was doing. He would not better himself as a musician in this quartet, but as a teacher.

“Okay,” Noctis said, tightening his bow back up, “we could agree on some stylistic things, first off.”

And here, he realized that Noctis would help him learn not only by playing the student, but also by playing a seasoned coach in his own moments.

“When it’s _sul pont_. How close do we wanna play to the bridge?” Noctis asked. “I think Prompto and Gladio are pulling back more than me.”

Just like that, Prompto stopped idly strumming his violin in his lap and started looking at the page at the stylistic marking he’d been heretofore ignoring.

“Think it depends.” Gladio gave glances around the small semicircle. “Sure, get right on top of the bridge when it’s in the minor section and it’s supposed to get gnarly, but when we’ve got the harmonic stops after that, we need _some_ tone.”

“On the contrary, playing _molto [12] sul ponticello _helps the harmonics to speak more easily,” Ignis said.

“Try it both ways and see which we like better?” Noctis suggested. “Rehearsal M[13], try it way _ponticello_ first. Who’s got the solo here, is it…?”

Noctis was already looking Ignis’s way as a guess, and Ignis nodded to confirm.

“Right. Rehearsal M, no cello,” Noctis said with a nod back. “Iggy, you listen.”

Gladiolus had introduced himself as Gladio. Ignis had never called himself Iggy, yet Noctis picked up the nickname with just as much nonchalance. With a quirk of a smile, Ignis nodded.

Then Noctis nodded, and the upper strings were playing. Prompto kept his eye more on Noctis’s bow than on his own music, which was another point to his credit, Ignis decided. After swelling into the first crescendo, Noctis cut them off, and they started again, this time leaving about half a centimeter of space between their bows and the peak of the bridge.

Ignis nodded as they concluded, then slid a smile to his right side. “I’ll have to concede to Gladio on this,” he murmured with a hint of surprise. “There’s a much-needed distinction between the note and the harmonic when you leave a bit of room before the bridge.”

“Noted,” Gladio said with a grin as he picked up his pencil to make it noted literally. Prompto scrambled to copy him as if he needed permission to write in his music.

“Cool, one last thing. How do we wanna play the, uh, the tremolo parts?” Noctis asked. “Prompto, you’re playing them as a real tremolo, but Gladio’s doing thirty-second notes, right?”

Noctis was doing an absolutely tactful job of hinting to Prompto that he wasn’t reading his part correctly. It spoke to the poor freshman’s anxiety that he went stiff as a board anyway. Gladio even tried to set him at ease with a noncommittal shrug and a mumbled, “Think that’s just how they do it in my recording.”

“Which way are you playing it, Iggy?” Noctis asked.

“Demisemiquavers as well.”

The first reaction was a stifled snort from Gladio. He received a dumbfounded stare from Prompto, and a blank look from Noctis at first, until it shifted into a broad grin that made his deep, blue eyes glitter. “Wow,” he said, “you’re British[14].”

“Was that really the surest tell?” Ignis replied, unable to help the smile on his own lips.

“We gonna have to deal with this when you talk about the parts with hemisemidemiquavers?” Gladio teased.

“Hemi-demi-semi,” Ignis corrected. “Honestly, as if that’s any more cumbersome to say than _sixty-fourth note_.”

“Six-ty-fourth note,” Noctis said in staccato, counting the four syllables on his fingers. “He-mi-de-mi-se-mi-qua-ver.”

Ignis hid a smirk behind his hand as he adjusted his glasses at the bridge. “Describing subdivisions shouldn’t require a man to memorize the powers of two up to the eighth degree.”

“Shouldn’t make me have to remember whether semi comes before demi,” Gladio said.

“Do you use solfège[15] instead of letter names, too?” Noctis asked. “Like, if you say _si_ , you mean B, not the letter C.”

“No, that’s a continental European practice, and I believe it’s primarily linguistic rather than cultural,” said Ignis. “I will, however, come to blows with anyone who uses movable _do_ in my presence.”

Gladio bent forward with a roar of a laugh, slapping an open palm against his knee. “Oh, buddy,” he could barely say.

“Alright, before you get yourself snapped in half,” Noctis laughed, nodding to Ignis. “You studied the score. What’s your call on the tremolos, Specs?”

“ _Specs?_ ” Ignis repeated, smile and eyebrow twitching.

“Sure, your…” Noctis gestured at his own eyes with a shrug.

“Wow,” Prompto quietly huffed, “guess I’m glad I left mine at home today.”

Gladio gave him a jovial elbow to the ribs. “Nah, if _you_ wore ’em, we’d call you ‘four-eyes’.”

A knock cut through their banter. Ignis’s watch found them a minute past their allotted rehearsal time.

“Yeah, c’mon in,” Gladio hollered at the door, rising and grabbing his pencil in the same motion. “Think fast, Iggy.”

“ _Thirty-second notes_ ,” Ignis enunciated stubbornly. A grin was already splitting his face; it spread from ear to ear when the other three players broke into smiles of their own. It was a dull piece, and the players were beneath his ability, yet somehow Ignis was sure he was going to enjoy this ensemble more than any he had in a long time.

 

* * *

 

ha ha i had so many footnotes it didn't fit in the end notes section SORRY EVERYONE

1 Ah, the viola. My personal primary instrument, and admittedly a disaster of acoustics that was never meant to be held upon the shoulder. To a certain extent, all string instruments sound louder the bigger they are, due to the physics of sound (a larger resonant body allows more air to be moved and thus creates stronger, larger sound waves, in essence). Violins and cellos both have so-called "full" sizes for the instrument, after which point making the instrument any bigger makes the ratio of the strings to the body of the instrument incorrect. For violas, that point would occur when the body of the instrument gets to be something like 20 inches long (for comparison, a violin's body is about 14 inches long at its fullest). This would be frankly unplayable, so most violists settle for at least 16 inches and say "good enough". Gladiolus Amicitia, veritable giant and massive showoff, has a viola that's 17.25 inches long, just because he can. [return to text]

2 **semitone:** Also called a half-step, but Ignis is too British for that. The smallest space between two notes in... most music ( **×** LIGETI [2.1] DON'T INTERACT **×** ). The space between two adjacent keys on a piano. [return to text]

2.1 **György Ligeti:** A 20th century composer, known for his music being used in 2001: A Space Odyssey and, as with a lot of avant-garde composers actually, for thinking the standard 12 chromatic notes just weren't enough. [Here's his mildly extratonal viola sonata](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBKqt98l5cs), complete with sheet music so you can see the little weird things he's doing (bonus - every note that's got a circle over it? that's a harmonic!) [return to previous footnote]

3 **Bach Cello Suite V in C minor:** A piece for solo cello traditionally played scordatura with the top A string tuned down to G, although [this was the best video I could find of someone actually using that tuning](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0zndpB5RNQ). As a violist, Gladio knows about this, because viola solo repertoire is so sparse that we steal from cellists. [return to text]

4 **_Danse Macabre_ :** An orchestral piece by Saint-Saëns. The solo violinist tunes down the top E string to E-flat to create "the devil's interval", a tritone. The classical interpretation of Devil Went Down to Georgia, if you will. [Get ready to rock out.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71fZhMXlGT4) [return to text]

5 **Philip Glass:** A well-known and beloved living composer whose work name is synonymous with the minimalist genre. Minimalism is all about simplicity in music, just focusing on "aural beauty". I don't think Golijov's quartet quite classifies as minimalism, but Ignis's criticisms of the piece completely undermine the point of minimalist music, which is the argument Gladio is making. [Here's an excerpt of Glass's lovely Mishima quartet.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4XMeY1RkWQ) [return to text]

6 **tremolo:** A rapidly played note, or pair of notes in this case. [Here's what Prompto found himself looking at.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tremolo#Bowed_string_instruments) [return to text]

7 **demisemiquavers:** In American terminology, 32nd notes; in layman's terms, Real Fast. More on this later. [return to text]

8 **_sul ponticello_ :** In Italian, "on the bridge". It means to play with your bow very close to the bridge of the instrument - that's the thin piece of lighter wood holding up the strings in the center of the body of the instrument. Playing with your bow too close to the bridge makes [a very nasal sound that's sometimes intentionally used for effect](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDEwJXPl01w). [return to text]

9 **five-string violin:** Just what it says on the tin. It's got five instead of four. In addition to the usual E-A-D-G, they add in a low C from the viola register, so that one instrument essentially has the range of both violin and viola. It's more common to see an electric instrument with an extra string than an acoustic one, but Prompto would need an acoustic one for this endeavor if he wanted to blend in with rest of the quartet. [Here's an example of a talented violinist playing an acoustic 5-string for the first time](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0f3jasKLccI), and you can sometimes hear the whistle of an adjacent string when her bow accidentally touches it. [return to text]

10 **button:** Where the cello or bass has an endpin to balance on, violins and violas have a little nub called the "button". As far as I know it's just there to loop things around, like the tailpiece, which is the part that holds the bottom end of the string. Some types of shoulder rests also loop around the button. [return to text]

11 **Tchaikovsky Symphony 6 ("Pathétique"):** The piece I associate with being a really tired and achy string player because of the time I had to perform it end-to-end twice in a row for a conducting masterclass concert. [But really quite beautiful.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDqCIcsUtPI) [return to text]

12 **_molto_ :** Just means "more" in Italian. It's Ignis being a pedantic asshole. [return to text]

13 **rehearsal letters/numbers:** Sometimes the editor publishing parts for a piece has helpfully marked notable sections with large numbers or letters for rehearsal purposes. Sometimes the editor has not done this, and everyone hates them. [return to text]

14 Just. [Look at this.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Note_value#List) [return to text]

15 **solfège:** Did you know _The Sound of Music_ wasn't making up silly words for the do-re-mi song? My mom, _The Sound of Music_ enthusiast and high school marching band veteran, didn't know that until I came home from college talking about my sight-singing classes. This little musical alphabet is called [solfège](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solf%C3%A8ge). See also the fixed/movable do sections to understand the point of contention Ignis and Gladio are about to have. [return to text]


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, that was way too many footnotes last chapter, and I swear I'll never do that again. There's only three in this one, and none of them are pieces.

To be honest, all Noctis really wanted to do was shove his priceless family heirloom of a violin into his locker, trudge home, and take what he’d call a nap but would probably blend into actually just plain sleeping through the night. Unfortunately, he’d always known the difference between _want_ and _should_ , and when to prioritize one over the other, and right now there was a little _should_ on his right shoulder, right across from the aching _want_ on his left.

It wouldn’t take long. It was the right thing to do.

The boy who had been so bright and peppy when the freshmen violinists first met up for lunch now looked so scared and withdrawn.

So Noctis walked away from his locker, threading through the chatty vocalists and idle percussionists who tended to clutter this hall, and called out to the fellow freshman working out an unfamiliar locker combination, “Hey, Prompto.”

Prompto flinched so badly that the padlock slipped out of his fingers and banged back into the locker door. He smothered it with his hand a split second later as if it would undo the loud noise still reverberating in the metal.

“You free now?” Noctis asked, scratching the back of his neck. “Not for long, just… thought maybe we could figure out some of the bowings while we’re both still here.”

Prompto scratched at his own hair. “Yeah, I… I was just gonna go back to the dorms, but.” He gave a nervous little laugh. “Guess I should _really_ be practicing, huh.”

Noctis’s hand sunk down to his shoulder, grimacing at the thought. “Dude, no, we’re not practicing,” he groaned. “Any more of this and I’m gonna need to ice my shoulder for the rest of the night.”

A flicker of empathy, or maybe something else, crossed Prompto’s freckled face. “Ooh, ouch,” he breathed. “You okay?”

“Yeah, it’s just… You know. Tchaik.” He gave Prompto a knowing smile. “I was thinking we could just… pencil some stuff out.”

Prompto let out another one of his nervous little laughs, lowering his case from over his shoulder. “So… not looking for a room[1], then?”

Noctis shrugged, then regretted it with a wince. “I mean… Friday afternoon,” he said, trying to keep the strain out of his voice. “There’s gotta be a bunch open, why not grab one.”

It turned out, after looping through every single hall on the floor, that there were not a bunch open, and in fact there were none open. After that impromptu tour of the conservatory basement, the floor was looking even more enticing than before.

“Fuck it,” Noctis said. He dropped his music to the ground with the satisfying _thwap_ only an orchestra folder[2] can provide, then slowly eased himself down to his stomach in the middle of the hallway.

Prompto let out a couple more of his trademark little laughs, and they sounded a little less nervous than before. He leaned his violin case against the wall and sat himself beside it, opening his own folder. “Guess this is as much practicing as I was ever gonna get done with this crowd around, huh,” he said.

“Who wants to be productive after three o’clock on a Friday, anyway,” Noctis grumbled.

Pencil in hand, Prompto gestured around the hallway full of closed practice room doors, and the general cacophony of instruments and voices bleeding through the walls. “Lots of people, I guess?”

“Maybe it’s just the start of the school year,” Noctis said, laying the quartet on the face of his folder. “Like New Year’s Resolutions. They won’t keep this up.”

“Hope so,” Prompto laughed, and he was back to sounding nervous again. “I’m never gonna be able to get any practicing done if it’s always like this.”

“Pro-tip, if you’re desperate.” Noctis pointed a pencil at him. “Check the theory classrooms on the hour. They’re unlocked during the day, and the smaller ones don’t usually have classes back-to-back.”

Prompto pressed the barely-existent eraser of his pencil to his lip as he nodded. “Man, that’s smart,” he exhaled. “Thanks. I’m… probably gonna need all the time I can get, really. Sorry, about… today.”

Noctis frowned. “For what?”

“I just, I totally…” Prompto tucked his pencil behind his ear as his hand climbed into his hair, twisting a fistful of locks so tightly that Noctis understood why his hair looked like such a mess. “I couldn’t keep count, I fucked up all the entrances and everything. I fucked the whole thing up.”

“You were fine, dude.” Noctis leaned his cheek on his fist. “It’s the first rehearsal, you’re not gonna be perfect. Nobody was. You held your own, it’s fine.”

For a couple of seconds, Prompto regarded him with open-eyed shock. It smoothed away without so much as a smile.

“Really,” Noctis said.

“I’ll get it together by next week, promise,” Prompto mumbled, so Noctis dropped the topic with a sigh.

They laid their music side by side at opposite angles, Prompto hunching over his part and Noctis kicking his legs back and forth as he lay in front of his. It left Prompto in the better position to pantomime bowstrokes as Noctis suggested them. Eventually there came a time where Noctis’s count of down-up-down-up-down as he tapped along the slurs with his pencil mismatched with Prompto’s kinetic down-up-down-up-down-up. Prompto pivoted around his arm to swing to Noctis’s side, like a kid who had hung out with the b-boy club a couple of times in high school, and they pored over the parts together, jabbing fingers across the score and bumping elbows, shoulders, and hands as they drew invisible bows, until a door creaked down the hallway. Out walked a petite girl with red curls and a case that either belonged to an oboe or a clarinet, who stopped to flick off the lights before she left. The boys fell silent and still at the same time, then glanced at each other. All Noctis had to do was blink at the wrong moment and suddenly Prompto wasn’t there beside him anymore, because he had taken off into a sprint.

He grabbed the door handle before it came shut, holding tight to it as if to lay claim to the room, and waved Noctis over with a grin that as blinding as it was devilish.

Noctis gave a dramatic eye-roll as he slid their folders into one stack. “Geez, Prom,” he said, “making me carry all your…”

He trailed off, because the way that attempt at a nickname sounded outside of his head was just as weird as the look Prompto was giving him from down the hall.

“Uh, sorry,” Noctis said with a huff of a laugh, shoving himself up to his knees. “Guess that’s... kind of a weird thing to call somebody. It just…”

“Nah, it’s…” Prompto leaned against the wall beside the door and shrugged, crossing one leg behind the other. “I’ve gotta get over my embarrassing flashbacks to last June somehow, right? Maybe exposure therapy.” That devilish quality returned to his grin as he said, “You can call me Prom… _Noc_.”

Noctis laughed as he got to his feet, tucking the music under one arm and picking up Prompto’s violin case with the other. “Usually Noct,” he said. “With the T.”

Prompto blinked, and then his smile came back brighter than ever. “Noct,” he repeated. “Okay.”

He was still grinning as he grabbed his case from Noctis’s hand and held the door open with one outstretched foot. Setting the music on the stand, Noctis asked, “So are you gonna start calling him Gladio instead of Gladiolus?”

After a sharp laugh, Prompto said, “Uh, no.”

Noctis smirked and put his violin down at the edge of the room. He scooted the rickety piano bench as far under the keys as it would fit, then moved his violin again, and then moved it back. Only a woodwind player could have managed to make use of this room, tiny as it was. Just opening Prompto’s violin case to unpack ate up about twenty percent of the remaining floorspace in the room.

“Okay, measure 102, right?” Prompto said, sweeping the violin up under his chin. “Let’s figure you out.”

Noctis’s teachers sometimes said they could recognize his violin playing in a blind audition among a dozen other players. He always had owed that to the obvious factor: his violin was an eighteenth-century work of art, while any other player his age was likely playing a modern instrument, lucky if they had more than a couple grand invested in it. His voice was only the voice of Lucis Caelums past.

Prompto, on the other hand, had a voice all his own. It was kind of like his speaking voice: a little bit hesitant when nervous, and rough around the edges, but it gave his levity and brightness a depth of character. His bow hand was pronated too far, creating artificial pressure with his index finger where it should have come from the weight of his arm. He had a wacky vibrato that lived in his whole forearm rather than just his hand and wrist, but it weirdly matched the color of his pressed bow. Noctis couldn’t help but _like_ the way it sounded, even if, according to everything he’d been taught for the past decade and a half, it was technically all wrong.

And sometimes he did this funny thing when he cut himself off in the middle of a passage. His fingers drooped downwards, making the notes sound like they were awkwardly falling off a cliff. He giggled as he did it—giggled, not nervous, just unabashed little laughs—and let his violin come off his shoulder.

“Noct, we were starting at different measures,” he said. “I numbered it wrong[3], I was doing it during rehearsal, so—I was starting at 101, not 102.”

“Oh my God.” Noctis held a hand up to his face and grinned. “Are you a measure off for the whole rest of the piece, too?”

Prompto went pale with horror. “No,” he uttered. “ _No_.”

In a twelve-minute piece, being one measure off at measure 102 meant being at least one measure off for the next seven hundred fifty-odd measures, as well. Noctis grabbed his part off the stand so they could compare final counts; by the grace of God, Prompto was still just one measure shy of the full count all the way through, so it was a simple matter of adding one to every row. He sat himself cross-legged in a corner, furiously scratching at the pencil marks with a subpar eraser. Noctis tugged the folder out of his hands, laid it in the center of the floor, and crouched to the right side of it, folding up the pages until he could see the last one.

“I’ll start from the back,” he said, erasing the _4_ off of an _834_. “You work from the front, we’ll meet up in the middle.”

You would’ve thought Noctis had just offered to donate his left kidney to the guy by the grateful smile that blossomed on his face, and the breathless way he said, “Thanks, man.”

“Yeah. No sweat.”

They met up not in the middle, but a little after measure 500, so Prompto accused Noctis of not pulling his weight since he had gone through well over half of the near 850 measures. Noctis pointed out that Prompto had gotten a head start at measure 101, so he had in fact only gone through about 400 measures. When Prompto demanded to know how many that left to Noctis still, both fell into a silence only music majors could manage, unable to make their minds churn through the simple subtraction. And just as suddenly, they both burst into laughter.

“Oh my God, we’re done with math forever,” Prompto sighed with bliss, rolling onto his back on the practice room floor. “I thought about going to a liberal arts school for a while there, but honestly? Not having to take real classes is _the best_.”

“This is so stupid,” Noctis said back, his laughter so shallow and breathless that it came out like a cackle. “It’s just… five hundred minus… I mean… _fuck_!”

“Shh! Shh.” Prompto rolled towards Noctis, holding a finger to his grinning lips. “No math. No one cares. I just need to count to four for the rest of my life.”

“And powers of two, right?” Noctis added. “Unless you wanna go hemidemisemiquavering with Iggy.”

Something he said sucked the joy right out of the room. Prompto’s smile and flushed cheeks both faded. His head sagged to the ground with a little sigh. “Man,” he said, “I can’t believe they stuck him in a quartet with two freshmen, y’know? Gladio, too.”

Noctis rolled so he could face the ceiling. He barely got the chance to inhale before Prompto was speaking again.

“Like—not you! You’re, like, really crazy good?” he stammered. “I mean, I get why they put _you_ in, but… I’m just… I’m not even good enough to be _second_ violin with you guys. It totally sucks for… for Ignis and Gladiolus, y’know.”

“It didn’t happen by accident,” Noctis said. “You auditioned and they picked you.”

“Yeah, but—but they made a mistake, right?” Prompto came halfway off the ground, leaning on his elbow. “I’m not—”

“You auditioned, and they picked you,” Noctis repeated, more slowly and emphatically this time. “Quit thinking about what you’re not and just… be what you are. They put you here on purpose, Prom.”

Prompto’s open, soundless mouth shut after a couple seconds. He lowered himself back to the floor, staring at the ceiling along with Noctis as if they were gazing at stars rather than stains in the ceiling tiles from a history of water damage.

“You totally called him Gladio for a second there,” Noctis said when he couldn’t wait any longer to point it out.

Prompto’s embarrassed laughter came out through his nose. “Gladio sounds way cooler than Gladiolus,” he admitted.

“S’why he told you to call him it,” Noctis said.

“Okay, but I _can’t_ believe you called Ignis ‘Specs’. You, sir, are a brave man.”

“I dunno, it suits him.”

“Did you even—did he tell you to call him ‘Iggy’ or did you just start doing it?”

Noctis paused, frowning as he considered it. “I think I just… yeah.”

“Oh my God.”

“It’s what I do, _Prom_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1 **practice room:** A space small enough for a single person and their instrument, sometimes large enough to contain a piano, sometimes not but there is one anyway. A liminal space. Dubiously soundproofed. Smells like tears. [return to text]
> 
> 2 Quality orchestra folders are thick and sturdy, usually made with black imitation leather, to protect the music stored inside ([image here](https://www.musicfolder.com/media/catalog/product/b/n/bno_angle_1_3.jpg)). They make a very good sound when you drop them flat on the ground, unless you are a choir conductor telling your singers to sing something from memory and the entire choir drops their folders simultaneously. (If you are not the conductor, it is still a good noise.) [return to text]
> 
> 3 **measure numbers:** While nice editors will give you rehearsal numbers/letters at important spots, basically no editors will give you line-by-line counts of which measure you're on. You have to write those in yourself and it's extremely tedious. [return to text]


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy birthday to Gladio! Here's a chapter for the biggest and best boy.

It was karma coming back to bite him, Gladio was sure. They’d scheduled their first meeting right after symphony orchestra, and Gladio had teased them for getting tired by the end of it. As luck would have it, the next place their schedules aligned was right after contemporary ensemble met. This time, Gladio was the one with his ass pre-kicked, weary in the head from counting back-to-back three’s, four’s, two’s, and sometimes just one’s, adding up to fives and sevens and weird eights, following the rhythms of chaos of a quirky piece for small orchestra and goddamn electric tuba.[1]

“So,” said Prompto as they pulled their stands together in the center of the room, “was nobody else gonna talk about how this composer’s kind of a jerk?”

Their folders and pencils made familiar percussive sounds as they hit the metal music stands. It was not followed by the scoot of chairs, because everyone had taken a pause to stare at Prompto. He took a moment to look up, and looked a little startled when he did. His eyes were pink at the edges, and the circles underneath were the color of pale bruises.

“I mean… I was just,” he stammered, scratching the nape of his neck with the screw at the end of his bow, “looking some stuff up, and I found his Wikipedia page, y’know, and he… right there in the table of contents, it just… It was like, ‘accusations of plagiarism’, or something.”

Gladio turned widened eyes to his music, fixating on the name Osvaldo Golijov[2] with a crease in his brow. In all honesty, as well as he knew the piece, he couldn’t say he knew much about the man behind it. As far as he could remember, the song had come up in YouTube’s autoplay in the wee hours of a high school homework grind, caught his ear enough for him to add it to a favorites playlist, and the rest was history.

When Ignis criticized it at the start of their first rehearsal, he turned a more critical ear to it than the one he had had in high school. Prompto coming after the composer made the faults he had heard all the more glaring.

“And there was this whole... _thing_ , about how he was commissioned to write a twenty minute piece for somebody,” he went on, his words running right up against each other as he crammed them out of his mouth, “and he was late on it, and when he finished it, it was only nine minutes, or whatever. And some of his stuff was just stolen. He admitted it.” Prompto let his bow hand fall back to his side. “Said that’s just what composers have always been doing.”

“So his notions of music theory aren’t the only thing that’s outdated,” Ignis quipped.

“Sure, it’s what they’ve always been doing,” Noctis muttered. “And they thought it was so shitty that they invented copyright laws to protect IP.”

His face was the most outwardly bitter, but everyone in the semicircle was regarding the music on their stand with a sour taste in the mouth. “I don’t think this was the one with the plagiarism,” Prompto added eventually, but it could not undo what had been said.

“Well,” said Ignis, with a sardonic smile, “on that note, shall we tune?”

“On that note,” Gladio repeated with a roll of his eyes.

“Let’s tune on A instead,” Prompto said with a broad grin.

It didn’t more than a minute of rehearsal for Gladio to realize that Prompto had shaped the fuck up.

He had come into the first rehearsal like any freshman would—underprepared, inattentive, assuming they could float by on the skills that had made them superstars in their high schools. Noctis had clearly approached his preparation with more rigor than the average underclassman, but he had still had the attitude of a hotshot highschooler in his uninterested expression. Gladio had been the same way in his freshman days. Time and time again, the new meat would come to the conservatory, and over the course of their first semester—sometimes it could take the whole first year—the reality check would hit them, and they’d wisen up. If the reality check never came, they usually faded from the student body before what should have been their junior year.

During a few measures’ rest, Gladio counted back from Tuesday to last Friday and gave a small, impressed nod to himself. He had never seen someone go through the process in four days.

Despite the weight of the bags under his bloodshot eyes, Prompto was attentive to every other member of the ensemble, sharing eye contact when their lines were about to run together, breathing in synchronization, and matching bow speed and strokes, especially in duets with the first violin. He was expressive and confident with his melodies, not just in the way he played, but in his face and his body language. To be honest, he was showing up the Lucis Caelum kid.

Gladio could see what Ignis was doing from a mile away, and he got the sense that Ignis didn’t care who saw what he was doing, or maybe even wanted to be seen. When they paused, Ignis discussed characterization with Gladio, and he gave small bits of advice to Prompto. He said almost nothing to Noctis all rehearsal. Not because Noctis did not need help, but because Noctis was not yet playing at a level of musicality where Ignis could give a directed piece of advice. Where with Gladio he could say, “Your vibrato is a little too wide in this section for the harmonies to line up,” or with Prompto he mentioned, “You’re tending to create artificial crescendos with your bow strokes during this tremolo section,” with Noctis, the best advice to give him was, “Maybe try having any expression at all when you play that line.” So Ignis said nothing at all, and that spoke volumes louder than any criticism could, at least to Gladio’s experienced ear. They would see next rehearsal if Noctis had picked up the hint.

But despite his emotionless style, Noctis was still a skilled and practiced musician. Rehearsal was starting to sound like the recording Gladio had first heard all those years ago. It tickled something nostalgic in his heart until he could not keep one corner of his mouth or the other from curling up in a smile as he played. By the end of the session, he had been through two and a half straight hours of rehearsing, plus an hour of practice beforehand, yet he stood up and stretched with a vigor as if the day were still fresh.

“Damn, I’m feelin’ ready to hit the gym, who’s with me?” he said, knowing full well that his company didn’t look like the type to do any such thing.

“You kidding me?” Noctis sighed, all but slithering out of his chair as if reluctant to even stand. He gave half a grimace and rolled his shoulder. “No thanks, I’m sore enough already.”

“Well, if your arms are tired,” Prompto said over his shoulder as he laid his violin in his case, “maybe it’s a good time for leg day.”

Gladio sneered at the weedy, pale boy closing his case. “If you think your arms are safe from leg day,” he said, “then you need somebody to show you how to do leg day right.”

Prompto looked even paler when he turned to meet Gladio’s eyes. “Oh my God, I was just,” he stammered, “it was a joke, I don’t… I just run, I don’t really go to the gym or anything, I—”

“You got a free gym on campus, Prompto,” Gladio said, scooping a hand around Prompto’s flimsy bicep to yank him to his feet. “You gotta take advantage of it. You’re comin’ with me.” He gave a jerk of a nod to Noctis. “You in, Noct?”

Noctis rolled his eyes and scoffed. “No way.”

“Whatever, princess.” Gladio turned to where Ignis was gathering his music in his folder. “What about you, Iggy?”

“Regrettably, I have a lesson,” Ignis replied, smiling as though this were not at all regrettable.

“Alright, your loss.” He gave a smirk to Prompto. “Our gains.”

Prompto still looked downright terrified, but he hadn’t given Gladio a “no”.

In truth, Gladio was a little short on gym buddies. A lot of friends had graduated at the end of last semester, and while many were still in town, some even living in his house, they no longer had access to the college facilities. He still had plenty of seniors and juniors around, but the chances of any two music majors being available to hit the gym at the same time were slim. Trying to schedule workouts was even harder than scheduling rehearsals, with a much higher chance of someone flaking at the last minute from exhaustion or aching wrists. There was a safety net in numbers, and last May, the net had gotten thinner. A year ago he would have barked out a laugh at the thought of hitting up freshmen for the gym as a senior, but this new kid was something. He liked Prompto.

In the locker rooms, he found out that he liked Prompto’s legs.

He first got the glimpse of toned thighs while Prompto was wriggling out of his steely grey skinny jeans. Out of courtesy, he kept his mouth shut until Prompto was safely into gym shorts instead of just boxer shorts before sending a nod down to his rock-hard calves. “Damn, forget leg day,” he said. “How much runnin’ do you get up to?”

Prompto masked the flush in his face by wriggling out of his tank top, but the color ran all the way down his neck. “Uh, a lot, I guess,” he said in a high voice. “Morning routine thing. Kinda—kinda slipping a little with the whole, y’know, first year of college thing, but!”

He jumped when Gladio gave him a jab in the slender arm, engrossed in peeling his shirt off over his wristbands. “Enough aerobics,” Gladio said, “time to get some meat on those bones.”

Prompto laughed once, almost in that nervous way he always did, but there was something a little sarcastic to it.

“I’ll getcha there, buddy,” Gladio said, equal parts encouraging and threatening.

“No, no, I—” Prompto stuffed his face inside a T-shirt to avoid responding for a moment. “I just, it’s funny, I was actually… I was really fat as a kid, actually.”

“Hah, no kidding.”

When Prompto pulled his head through the neckline of his shirt, his messy hair sprung right back up to its usual asymmetric arrangement as if nothing had touched it. “Yeah, you can kinda,” he mumbled, holding the bottom hem of the shirt scrunched up as he jutted out a hip and turned it towards the light. Faint, white stripes lined his washboard belly from his ribs to his pelvis.

“And then one day you started running?” Gladio guessed.

“Yeah, I guess.” Prompto pored over his own skin, rubbing at the stretch marks as if maybe today they’d smear away under his fingertips. “There was… I met… this girl, sort of? And she—”

“Oh, _that’s_ how it is.”

His face flaring crimson, Prompto shoved his shirt back down. “I swear, it wasn’t even like that,” he protested. “It was just, it was this thing, it was something she said, it wasn’t even…” He let out a huffy sigh. “Just made me wanna… be better, sort of. Be good enough for the people around me.”

Gladio wore a wry smile. “So that’s why you’re like this.”

Prompto looked up with his blank, sort of default-scared face. “Like what?”

Gladio just gave him a smirk and another light jab on the shoulder. “Good rehearsal today,” he said.

Prompto snorted. “Yeah, right,” he said, reaching to tuck in the tag at the back of his neck. “I… kind of practiced a shit ton for today. And Iggy was _still_ calling me out the whole time.”

“Hey. Nah.” Gladio planted a hand on his shoulder and leveled him with a serious look. “He wasn’t callin’ you out on anything.” After one last smile, Gladio turned to his locker, reaching for the back of his shirt to pull it over his head. “You’re workin’ hard. Everybody noticed.”

There was silence as he slid the shirt over his thick arms. He turned his head over his shoulder, calling out a teasing, “What?” before he saw the look on Prompto’s face.

It wasn’t one of pride, or relief, or shy embarrassment, or anything he had expected. It was a slackjawed stare that Prompto tossed aside as soon as Gladio turned around, his skin flaming red down past the neckline of his shirt.

“Nothing!” he squeaked, stuffing his feet into his sneakers. “Just, uh, nothing, just, your… Nice tattoo?”

Oh, he was a cute one.

“You like it?” Gladio said with a devilish grin, and he turned back around to flex out his arms, spreading the wings. “It’s not actually done yet. Waiting till graduation to fill ’er in, she’s gonna be red. Supposed to be the Firebird. Stravinsky, y’know?”[3]

“That’s so cool,” Prompto gushed.

Gladio dropped his arms back to his sides. “It’s _not_ cool, Prom,” he laughed. “It’s the nerdiest goddamn shit about me. I tattooed _wings_ on my back, for a _ballet_ , which everybody and their mom only knows from fuckin’ Disney’s _Fantasia_. [4] What the hell is wrong with you.”

It was still a little unsure, but Prompto was grinning broadly. “It looks really cool?”

He really did like Prompto.

“Hell yeah, it does.” He slid into a sleeveless tee and shut his street clothes into his locker. “Let’s get you lookin’ cool enough to rock tattoo sleeves, buddy.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1 **_Are You Experienced?_ :** Not to be confused with Jimi Hendrix's work (but that's absolutely where the name comes from). It's a 1987 work by David Lang for narrator, solo tuba (with amplifier), and a small orchestral ensemble. There's no good video, but [you can listen on the composer's personal website](https://davidlangmusic.com/music/are-you-experienced). Maybe a psychosis/unreality warning on this one but it's very mild. [return to text]
> 
> 2 **Osvaldo Golijov:** [It's all true, all of it.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osvaldo_Golijov) All of these emotions are mine. [return to text]
> 
> 3 **_The Firebird_ :** A ballet composed by Igor Stravinsky. I like to give videos of orchestras playing this but I do warn you, this conductor gets disgustingly sweaty over the course of the next fifty minutes. [Tread with caution.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZkIAVGlfWk) [return to text]
> 
> 4 If you are lacking either the patience to listen to a 50 minute ballet suite or the fortitude to watch a man conducting with such fervor that sweat hits the cellos, I recommend [this brief clip of the finale from _Fantasia 2000_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kw-ZQzOjA8). [return to text]


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've followed my previous works for Zero Escape, you know I am a sucker for this custom skin that formats iOS messages. You bet your ass I've brought them back again.

A slightly less anxious version of Prompto would have sent a text at least fifteen minutes ago. A functional version of him would have sent one about forty minutes ago. A confident Prompto would have fired off a text exactly one hour and twenty-two minutes ago when he had first laid eyes on this hellish, cryptic chord structure. Maybe it would have been an hour and twenty-one because he’d have to spend the first minute going through all of his extremely many new phone contacts deciding which of his classmates he wanted to ask for help.

As it was, the extremely anxious and unfortunately real version of Prompto was deciding between just two contacts, and they were both the freshman violinists with whom he’d exchanged numbers on that orientation day before classes, because he hadn’t picked up any other numbers in the two weeks since then. One of them was in his Music Theory class, but he’d barely said a word to the girl since meeting her, so he felt really bad only texting her just because he needed something from her, but the reason he never texted her until now was because it always felt kind of skeevy to bother a girl with texts when you barely knew her in person, and it was even more skeevy to start now, especially since the hour had crept past ten o’clock on a Thursday.

So that’s why, after one hour and twenty-two minutes, he finally texted not her, but the other violinist, who wasn’t even in his seminar.

It was worth a shot. Anything was.

Noctis Lucis Caelum  
  
**Today** 10:09 PM  
hey do you have drautos for theory?  
No sorry :( i tested out of theory 1  


Prompto leaned his desk chair back with a groan, threading his hands through his hair. Of course. Of course the perfect pupil, the violin virtuoso, the chairman’s heir Noctis Lucis Caelum wasn’t even _taking_ Music Theory this semester _because he already knew everything._

It was then only after one hour and thirty-seven minutes that Prompto worked up the nerve to send the next text.

Noctis Lucis Caelum  
  
**Today** 10:09 PM  
hey do you have drautos for theory?  
No sorry :( i tested out of theory 1  
**Today** 10:24 PM  
okay followup question  
do you know what the fuck this is  
[](https://i.imgur.com/HCGvooV.png)  
Lol  
Youre doing 7 chord inversions already? Wow  
Its the inversion with 7 on bottom. 2 btwn 7 and root and 4 btwn 7 and 3 so v42  
...what  
LOL  
Ok come over i can show you  
ahhhhh no its way late its fine >> i can figure it out  
its just a hw thing its not important  
Dude we are in the same dorm :P  
You can come over whenever  


They had discovered this while walking back from the conservatory building after practice on Friday. Prompto had wound himself up to give a farewell at the entrance of the music school, but then Noctis had ended up walking the same way. He did the same thing at the bend in the road that led to his residence hall, but again Noctis turned the corner along with him. They lingered for a few minutes at the base of the stairs of the dorm emblazoned Shiva Hall, too caught up in conversation to make their way to a goodbye, and once they finally got through one, they both ended it by taking a step up the same staircase.

They lived on opposite sides of the building, Noctis on the first floor and Prompto on the second, but it was amazing how not having to put on shoes to go somewhere made the distance seem negligible. Not that Prompto had traversed it more than once yet, and only then to return the pencil he had forgotten he’d borrowed for rehearsal that day.

Noctis Lucis Caelum  
  
Actually i have a question too  
Meet me in the laundry room?  
okay give me 5 min  
thanks so much ;;  
Yeah no problem :)  


The laundry room was at the center of Shiva Hall, a logical midpoint between their distant dorm rooms. Attached to it was a cozy study for freshmen to lounge in while they waited for their laundry. It was often empty, and so it was when Prompto ducked his head in looking for Noctis. Instead he found Noct standing in front of a washer, an emptied hamper on its side behind him. He turned to the sound of the door with wide eyes.

Then he gave a small bit of a smile, and for some reason the image stuck in Prompto’s head awhile. His first few steps into the room were slow and hazy. At last his mouth turned out a quick, “Hey,” and then the rest of it was normal.

“Hey,” Noctis said in reply. “So… this is probably going to sound really dumb, but.” He turned back to the washer. “How do I…”

The first dial on the panel was turned past “Large” to “Super Plus Load”, while the timer was still wound down to zero from its last cycle. Noctis lifted an uncertain hand to the temperature dial.

“Oh my God,” Prompto blurted with a laugh. “Dude, it’s been _weeks_. You haven’t done laundry this whole time?”

Noctis pulled his hand back to fold both arms across his chest. “It’s only been… I haven’t worn anything more than twice,” he protested. “I mean. Except pants.”

Prompto snorted a little when he laughed. “Okay, okay, this threw me off, too,” he admitted, leaning over the machine. “You have to reset the timer before you hit the start button, then it’ll go.”

Noct’s hand darted up to the timer and took hold of the knob, then froze. “Which one do I…?”

“I mean, are you doing delicates or regular stuff?” Prompto said with a shrug. “Or is anything permanent press, I guess.”

Noctis stood silent and still for a full three seconds before he said a slow, “What?”

Prompto took one last glance at the control panel to scope out the temperature dial set to “Hot/Cold”. Then he looked up at Noctis, taking in his wide, skittish eyes and his peachy pink cheeks.

“Okay,” he sighed with a smile, “let's take it from the top.”

Noctis gave a little jolt and a squirm when he'd been caught. His eyes went from making hesitant eye contact to exclusively seeking out the floor. Prompto just kept smiling as he hopped to take a seat on the adjacent washer, swinging his legs.

“Temperature,” Prompto said to start. “Are you doing whites or colors?”

Noctis frowned. “Both?”

Prompto opened his mouth to tell him he couldn't do _both_ , then shut it. “Y'know, okay, fair, I'm too lazy to sort my laundry most of the time, too.”

Noct's fingers crawled up his elbows. “You're supposed to sort it by color?”

“Whites and everything else, yeah. So the colors don't bleed,” Prompto explained. “Let’s see if you can fit into the lazy clause.” He held out one finger, donning a showman’s grin. “Question one! Do you have any white clothes that you wear on the outside?”

After a pause spent frowning and calculating, Noctis said, “I have some t-shirts?”

“Okay, then question two!” Prompto lifted his second finger. “Do you have anything red in there? Bright pink or purple counts.”

“I don't… _do_ bright colors.” Noctis pinched the skin of his right elbow with his fingers.

“Then you, sir, qualify for lazy laundry.” Prompto leaned over to turn the temperature dial down to cold. “Hot makes colors bleed, but it gets your whites nice and bright. I pick warm if I'm doing a colors-only load and there’s nothing real bright. But if you're being lazy, you play it safe with cold. It doesn't clean as well, but you don't stink too much, so, it's probably fine.”

Noctis rolled his eyes. “Gee, thanks.”

“Anyway, any chance you pay attention to what it says on your tags for washing instructions?” Prompto asked. “Hand wash only? Delicates? Special heat setting?”

“I cut all the tags out of my clothes.” He scratched the back of his neck, and his hand stayed there. “They itch.”

Prompto snorted more than a little when he laughed at that one. Noctis leaned away and grimaced at the sound.

“It's cool, we'll make it up,” Prompto said. “Anything fancy? Nice fabrics? Had any concerts yet? …Please tell me there's not a tuxedo in here.”

“There's not a—I'm not _that_ stupid, Prompto!”

The smile faded from Prompto’s face. Noctis’s nostrils flared with his audible inhale and exhale as he battled down a furious glare, his face mottled red in equal parts by anger and embarrassment.

“Hey, I didn’t—I didn’t say you were,” Prompto stammered.

“You didn't _say_ it,” Noctis muttered, rolling his eyes.

“Dude, I'm the one who came crawling to you for help with freshman music theory less than two weeks into the semester,” Prompto said. “Not exactly in a position to judge, here.”

Although Noct's eyes stayed across the room where he'd rolled them, his folded arms lost a little of their tension. “There's just regular clothes,” he grumbled. “Nothing fancy.”

It took Prompto a moment to reorient himself in the conversation Noctis had resumed. “Right,” he said on a breath. “Regular. So… set it to regular.”

With the last of the settings decided, Noctis was ready to throw in one of his detergent pods and start the cycle. It was right after Noctis hit the start button, and the humming and hissing of motors and water began, that Prompto decided was a good moment to mention the time.

“You planning on staying up late or something?” he said, glancing at the clock overhead that had rounded past quarter to eleven.

Noctis froze. “How long does laundry take?” he asked, slowly and hesitantly.

“A couple hours, maybe?” Prompto winced. “The wash cycle’s about a half hour. It’s when you get to the dryers that it takes forever. The ones here are kinda shitty, I had to put my stuff in for a couple cycles before it was actually done.”

Noctis brought a hand to his forehead. He let out a long groan. “Hope you got a lot of music theory questions.”

He didn’t. Although they settled into the couch in the lounge for the long haul, as soon as Noctis said “dominant seventh chord” out loud, Prompto knew exactly what he was talking about.

“I _hate_ writing it like this. Like, figured bass or whatever,” Prompto grumbled, coloring in the quarter notes of his chord.

“Roman numeral[1], not figured bass,” Noctis corrected. “Figured bass is worse—that’s when they just give you the bassline and the numbers for the inversions. No Roman numerals.[2]”

“Why don’t they write it like they do for guitar chords?” Prompto protested. “Like, pop style. How is _this_ easier than writing G over F? [3]” He shook his head. “ _Five four-two_.”

Noctis, who had the answer for what the four and the two next to the Roman numeral V meant, who even helped Prompto with voice leading [4] tips to smooth out the chords he had already written and struggled to connect to one another, opened his mouth, gave a little frown, and shut it again. “It’s… probably… some historic thing,” he faltered. “But… I don’t know why they… hold on, keep doing…”

He pulled out his phone, tapping away with that same serious, almost troubled look on his face. Prompto tentatively craned his neck to watch. He caught a glimpse of a page of Google results before Noctis shoved him away with a nudge from the whole side of his body. It had one of its intended effects: diverting his gaze from the screen. The other couldn’t quite happen while he was still in a daze from _something_.

“I’m looking it up, keep working,” Noctis said.

That dizzy _something_ made even the movement of Noctis’s thumb sliding along the screen to scroll somehow hypnotic. He pried his gaze away, only for it to catch on the glinting light in Noct’s deep blue eyes as they flicked and skimmed. He forced his face down into his notebook and colored in quarter notes that were already sufficiently black until he found his head again. It was almost like he had no memory of the past few seconds.

“I guess it’s just transposition,” Noctis mumbled. “Don’t know how that helps anybody but singers.”

“Ugh. Vocalists ruining everything, _again_ ,” was along the lines of what Prompto wanted to say, but Noctis had pulled up some mess of academic text and images on his phone, probably about Roman numeral notation, but Prompto couldn’t read it even when Noctis held it right in front of his face, because his whole side was pressed against Prompto again as he leaned in, and there was that _something_ again.

It had been like this before, sometimes. A bump of shoulders or a brush of arms with one of the guys from high school—not any boy, just some of them, just the two or three he’d known where he felt something _deep_ in their friendship, that maybe they could be much better friends, better than acquaintances of circumstance who copied each other’s homework and played video games together and dicked around on their instruments during the spaces in and around rehearsals, if he could just work up the nerve to talk to them deeper: to spill the vulnerable contents of his heart, because _something_ in their eyes made him know they would understand him. _Something_ in the warmth of that brief touch. _Something_ in the weak points of a bout of their laughter. _Something_ in the sound of their voice when it was soft and low and close.

“Prom?”

Prompto’s shoulder knocked into Noctis’s arm when his whole body tensed up with a flinch. “Sorry, what?” he said quickly. “Sorry, did you—I was, I was reading the, I didn’t catch…?”

“Oh, uh. Nothing.” Noctis’s eyes flicked to Prompto’s face, then somewhere low, then back to the phone, and Prompto wished he hadn’t seen it for some reason, because there was _something_ in that, too. “Just… it’s for transposition, like it says. For singers, probably.”

How had that been the last thing Noctis had said? How had that rushing moment passed so, so slowly?

“Ugh. Vocalists ruining everything, _again_ ,” Prompto said.

He remembered to stick the accompanying smile on his face and add the roll of his eyes, maybe a beat later than was natural. Nonetheless, Noctis laughed, hard enough for it to climb a little higher than his voice usually got, and there was that _something_.

He didn’t know what else to do. He’d only known Noct for a couple of weeks, and he didn’t know how to go about asking a new friend if he’d do you the honor of being your new _best_ friend. So he just mindlessly mapped out the notes in the final tonic chord in the passage.

“Hey, when you’re done,” Noctis said, “do you wanna play video games in my room? I have a PS4.”

“Yes,” Prompto blurted, dragging a line of graphite across his page with how swiftly he slammed down his pencil.

Noct’s room was one of two cozy singles tucked between the triples at the corners of the building. The nametag from his RA was the only thing on the door, and it didn’t even include his last initial, probably because Noctis had two and his first name was unique enough, anyway. It didn’t stop Prompto from considering the possibility that this was somehow the wrong Noctis when he had made this journey alone last weekend to deliver a pencil. Few personal accents hung on the beige cinderblock walls. The only things that made the room feel lived-in were the unmade black bedsheets and the tangle of wires connecting a PlayStation to a 20-inch screen.

The laundry should have only taken an hour and a half. To dry it faster, they split up Noctis’s load into all three dryers, since no one else was doing laundry after eleven o’clock on a Thursday. But they got so wrapped up in round after round of fighting games and first person shooters that they forgot to return to the laundry room until well after one in the morning. An unfinished conversation was the excuse for Prompto to follow Noctis and his stuffed hamper back to his room again. There, they sat down for “one more round” and didn’t stop playing until three.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1 **Roman numeral notation:** The Roman numerals represent which scale degree the chord is based on (where do is 1/I, re is 2/II, etc.). [It's the standard chord analysis notation for classical music.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_numeral_analysis) [return to text]
> 
> 2 **figured bass:** Noctis sums it up pretty well: even worse than Roman numeral notation. The bassline is written out in the music, and then only the inversion numbers are written (Prompto's perplexing 4-2 is an example of inversion numbers) and you have to infer the rest of the chord from that alone. People legitimately used to read music [like this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figured_bass) in the 1600-1700s and that frightens me. Side note—that Wikipedia link mentions Dido and Aeneas, so please, have a listen to [this lovely and iconic piece from that opera](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bf92jTgicGg) while you're at it, and imagine a pianist (harpsichordist) constructing chords from that bassline and the numbers below it on the fly somehow. Wizards. [return to text]
> 
> 3 **chord notation in popular music:** Instead of cryptic numbers and numerals, you just say what the heckdamn chord is that you want played and what note you want in the bass. [Prompto's got a point.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chord_names_and_symbols_\(popular_music\)) [return to text]
> 
> 4 **voice leading:** When writing chords in a sequence, you want to move notes in a sort of melodic way, step by step rather than making large, awkward leaps. The logic behind this is that you're essentially viewing these chords as notes sung by four singers in harmony, and singers have an easier time moving from note to note if the melody is smooth. You can get points deducted on your music theory homework if you don't practice good voice leading. [Here's a piece I sang in high school](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xp3IHBSyZKY) that I still think about when I think about good voice leading—see how the notes mostly move step by step without many large leaps. [return to text]


	6. Chapter 6

By their third rehearsal, Ignis was used to seeing Noctis’s dispassionate expression lurking behind his violin in such stark contrast to the music. All in all, he had thought through three separate plans for how to handle the situation.

His first plan was simple: ignore the problem and let it be resolved without his interference. In their first rehearsal with a faculty coach, Noctis would undoubtedly get an earful over the issue: something about how he should emulate Prompto’s active eyebrows, sweeping body language, and emotive eyes as he followed and passed cues around the group.

Then word came, in the form of a brief email, that their first coaching session would be postponed to next week while their assigned professor finished an orchestral tour. Suffering through at least two more rehearsals with an automaton for a first violinist would be too detrimental to the performance of the whole group, so Ignis formed his second plan. At risk of coming across as arrogant or bossy, Ignis would directly confront Noctis about his emotionless playing at their next rehearsal.

That next rehearsal was this, their third. It was once again a Friday afternoon after orchestra. Ignis watched Noctis not only for the usual cues, but also for the chance to point out a particularly uninspired moment in his playing. Yet when Noctis played this time, Ignis noticed a subtle change, though not for the better. With how blank Noctis usually kept his face, the subtle twitches of his eyes and the corners of his lips spoke volumes. He had a subtle furrow dug into his brow, and his eyes tightened with discomfort as he played. Even his vibrato, usually lush and sweet, was now dry and sparse. A hint of a grimace sprang up just before he flubbed a minor shift.

When Gladio pulled down his viola with a skeptical look at Noctis, the rest of the group slowed to a stop. With a nod, he said, “Try that one again, huh?”

Noctis sighed, rolling his neck. Prompto picked out a measure to start at; he had a knack for it, a testament to his thorough score study. Ignis, for his own part, barely played the notes when they started again. He was too transfixed by Noctis struggling through the same simple passage.

Truthfully, it was not exactly Noctis he was transfixed by, but his own reaction. Aside from this one small grievance—and if he were being honest with himself, it was not a grievance; the real reason he paid this quirk so much mind was because it absolutely _perplexed_ him how Noctis could play so sweetly yet wear such an impassive face all the while—he had to admit he was rather fond of Noctis, not only as a musician, but as a person. If he could not have admitted it before, he had to now, when a clawing sense of worry was gripping his stomach at the sight of something amiss.

At a particularly high position on the fingerboard, he saw a straining tendon twitch in Noctis’s left wrist, then there was a screech of a bow slipping. Noctis nearly dropped his violin when he slammed his hand down against his thigh, hissing with pain.

“Whoa, hey, buddy, you okay?” In less than a second, Prompto had his violin and bow held in one hand, and was reaching the other tentatively towards Noctis. “Is it your shoulder thing again?”

At this remark, Gladio rose, laying his bow across the lip of the music stand and seating his large viola behind him. He laid a hand on Ignis’s shoulder as he slipped his knees out from between their chairs. When Gladio gave a gentle push downwards, Ignis realized there were a number of inches between himself and his own seat. He fell back to his chair.

“Nah, it’s—it’s not the shoulder, it’s—” Noctis winced, flexing his hand open and twisting it. “Now it’s my wrist, too, I guess? My whole _arm’s_ falling apart.”

“If you got shoulder problems in the first place, it’s all comin’ from your shoulder.” Gladio’s voice always became gruff and resounding when he played teacher for these short moments. With an upward flick of his finger, he said to Noctis, “Stand up. Too painful to hold the violin up or can you do that for a second?”

At the command, Noctis jerked up from his seat. He slowed to a cautious pace as he lifted his instrument to his aching shoulder. Gladio circled behind him, and when Noctis twisted his stance to follow, Gladio nudged him back into place with a push against his back.

“Just stand still. Relax,” Gladio instructed. “This feel like how you usually hold it?”

Noctis rolled his head to the other side and then back to his chin rest, wiggling his shoulders to adjust. “I think,” he said. “Hard to tell if it feels right when it’s…” He lowered his left hand from the neck of his violin to massage the tendons in his wrist.

“Alright, that’s enough. If you can drop your hand and the damn violin doesn’t even—put it down,” Gladio said, pressing his hand against Noctis’s left shoulder blade. “You’re really squeezin’ it with your shoulder, y’know that? No wonder you’re all bent outta shape, all tensed up like that all the time. Take your shirt off a sec.”

Noctis, gingerly bent over his chair to lay down his violin, gave a violent flinch. “What?”

“Lemme see what I’m workin’ with, I can help you out.” With a smirk, Gladio pinched a fold of Noctis’s T-shirt and gave it a tug. “C’mon.”

“You know, this is why people start rumors about what happens in practice rooms—”

“Shut up and take it off, princess.”

Prompto lunged forward to throw a protective hand over the Lucis Caelum violin as Gladio just about wrestled the shirt off of Noctis. The flush ran across his dark skin from his cheeks, up to the tips of his ears and down to the base of his neck, and deepened in color when Gladio pressed a firm, inquisitive hand along his soft, bare shoulder.

“Yeah, you’re tense as hell,” Gladio murmured, giving Noctis’s back a rub with his palm. “Lift your arm out to the side, high as it can go. Straight.”

His arm barely made it higher than shoulder level before he started to wince. Gladio brought one hand up to support his arm at the elbow, the other still holding his shoulder blade.

“Kinda hurtin’ the whole way down, isn’t it?” Gladio said with a knowing grin. “The muscle here—”

Noctis let out a soft noise, equal parts surprised and uncomfortable, when Gladio pressed his fingers into the tender space between scapula and spine.

“—it’s runnin’ all the way along here, here, and here,” Gladio went on, tracing the trail of sinew down Noctis’s slender arm until he made it to the wrist. “So this is all comin’ from you squeezin’ your violin too tight with your shoulder when you’re holdin’ it.” And then, very suddenly, Gladio was lifting the hem of his own shirt, with a casual, “Lemme show you.”

Prompto laughed, tossing out a jeer of, “Oh my God, Gladio, will you make _any_ excuse to take your shirt off?” but if Gladio had a retort for him, Ignis missed it, his focus too drawn to the lineart of bird’s wings feathering out from the rippling muscles of Gladio’s back, shoulders, and arms.

“Prompto, you know muscles, right? Gimme a hand.”

Prompto hung his violin by the scroll off of the bottom lip of the music stand—the sight gave Ignis flashbacks to dark days he’d thought long forgotten, of high school orchestras taking ten minute breaks to wade out through a sea of precariously abandoned instruments[1]—and hopped to his feet.

With his bare back turned to Noctis, Gladio lifted his left arm into a flex. Different muscles bulged as he shifted his position. “Show him where the rhomboids are?” he told Prompto, whose face flushed pink as he pointed a finger in the air along the band of muscle between Gladio’s shoulder blade and his span. Gladio pointed a frown over his shoulder. “Point at it, Prom. Touch it or I can’t tell you’re showin’ him the right thing.” So Prompto’s color graduated from a pale pink to a warm red.

Ignis tried to keep ahead of Prompto’s hand as Gladio called out the names of different muscles, making a private competition of guessing first where the lats were, and the rear delts, and noticing with what might have been disdain that Gladio could easily have reached the traps himself, though he couldn’t understand why that inspired _disdain_ of all emotions. Between flexes, Gladio explained how the muscles he had named all interacted, and the actions that could aggravate or soothe them. He turned himself to face Noctis and crossed his arm over his chest, high and straight, pulling it back with his other arm looped around the wrist. He had to raise his chin to fit his bicep underneath it. Noctis mirrored the motion with a bit of a frown, until his arm was straightened far enough to feel the stretch. His eyes went wide, then winced with discomfort.

“Yep, that’s it. Take it easy, hold it ten seconds if you can,” Gladio said, circling back behind Noctis again. “When it’s not hurtin’ you, you can hold it thirty.”

Prompto, too, pulled his arm across his chest. His curious frown turned to a smile within a few seconds of settling into position.

“You got one o’ those hard shoulder rests, right?” Gladio asked, as he oh-so-casually grappled Noctis’s scapula and rotated it in his large, gentle hands. “Y’ever tried another one?”

Noctis had to wait for the groan to pass from his lips before he could respond. “Like… a sponge? I mean…” He shut his eyes with another groan. “When I was a kid, sure. With the… ugh, tiny… half-size…”

“Might be time to try again.” Gladio gave a glance up at the clock and his eyes flashed. “Shit, yeah, it’s really time. C’mon.”

He shifted his grip to the top of the shoulder, but instead of massaging, he tugged Noctis towards the door. Too helplessly small to resist a pull from a man of Gladio’s size and strength, Noctis stumbled forward. “What the _hell_ , Gladio,” he sputtered, “let me get my fucking _shirt_ before—”

“No time, s’almost the half-hour,” Gladio said with a nod at the clock, dragging Noctis shirtless to the door. “Dad’s got a gap between lessons, know he’s got a buncha different shoulder rests in his office—”

Prompto realized it before Noctis, and the incredulous laugh he let out sounded more like a squawk than a human noise. Noctis looked from him to Gladio, and the moment it dawned on him, his face turned the richest shade of red yet between him and Prompto both. “Wait, you’re taking me to _Clarus’s_ —”

Gladio threw open the door and yanked Noctis through, both of them shirtless. “Hurry it up,” he said, grinning broadly.

“ _This is why people start rumors about—!_ ”

The small rehearsal room fell into stunning silence when the door swung shut behind them, suddenly cutting out the sound of their voices as well as the ambient noise from the hallway outside. Ignis eventually looked to Prompto, who seemed to be having as much trouble settling back into reality as Ignis from the blank look in his wide eyes and his vacant, fading smile. After a beat, he remembered himself and turned to Ignis, then sharply turned away under the pressure of eye contact. Out of courtesy, Ignis averted his eyes as well, instead regarding the abandoned violins and viola now sitting in the empty chairs around him (aside from the violin still dangling dangerously from a music stand).

“So much for rehearsal,” Ignis murmured.

Prompto gave one of his more nervous laughs; they weren’t so tight and short when he laughed with the others in the quartet. As he slipped back to his seat, finally rescuing his poor violin from its impending doom, he asked, “Are there any parts where the second and the cello play melody together?”

“You know that there aren’t,” replied Ignis with a small smile.

Still avoiding his eyes, Prompto missed the acknowledgement Ignis had intended to give with that remark: the appreciation of his score study. He stared at his music as he tucked his violin back under his chin with clumsy hands. “Uh, background parts, maybe?” he asked hopefully. “Anything I’m messing up, y’know?”

“If there’s anything you’d like to work on in particular,” Ignis offered, settling his cello into the sweet spot between his knees.

Prompto gave that offer a thoughtful hum, running through the sheet music as if he were looking for the right answer to a question in an open book exam. He came to a halt soon, but it took him another ten seconds of nervous fidgeting before he said, voice squeaking, “Can I ask a dumb question?”

“Certainly,” Ignis replied. “You’ve never felt the need to ask permission before.”[[2](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPxJAx7ysVA)]

Prompto’s lips stalled out for several more seconds before he put on the most mortified expression Ignis had ever seen him wear.

“I’m only teasing, Prompto,” Ignis said, unsuccessfully stifling a smile. “By all means, ask away.”

“Um.” It took him a moment to gather his words back up, and longer still to dismiss the color from his cheeks. “So. Uh, this harmonic? I dunno if you know how to read this, I could ask Noct when he gets back, but, uh.” He rotated his stand to face Ignis and pointed out a hollow, diamond-shaped note on the page. “Do you know if that’s supposed to be natural or false?[3] Like, it doesn’t have a fingering for false, but…” He stared down his fingerboard as if it would tell him the answer. “Where am I supposed to play it?”

“The fingering there is exactly what you play,” Ignis said. “When the notehead is shaped that way, that’s where your finger is intended to go. When it’s written as sounded, it’s a regular notehead with the open circle above it.”

“Wait, but…” Prompto touched his second finger to the G string in the placement of B-natural in such disbelief that he didn’t even try to bow it. “ _That’s_ a harmonic?”

“It can be a struggle to make it sound on higher strings and smaller instruments, but it’s the fifth partial,” Ignis said. “Theoretically, harmonics happen at every fraction along the string. It’s likely you’ve only played the second, third, and fourth partials thusfar, as a violinist, but I’m sure you can go as high as the fifth and sixth partials as well, with sufficient bow speed.”

“Uh,” Prompto cut in with an even more nervous laugh, his fingers splayed over the fingerboard in tangled confusion, “can you slow down, there? Sorry…”

Ignis shrugged. “It’s a matter of mechanical physics,” he explained. “Harmonics are created when a resonating length—such as your string—vibrates at a fraction of the usual wavelength. Touching your finger at the halfway point on the string forces the wavelength to be cut in half, and that creates an octave. Playing with your fourth—ah, pardon, for violin, your _third_ finger on the string in first position will touch the string at its quarter partial, and that will cause the string to sound two octaves higher—it’s a half of a half.”

Prompto silently fingered along with Ignis’s overview of the more common harmonics, which Ignis hoped was attentiveness.

“Roughly speaking, your second finger in the sharp position plays at the one-fifth mark on the string, thus, the fifth partial,” Ignis said. “It’s a natural harmonic.”

“This shit coming from the guy who thinks it’s too much math to add up to sixty-four?” Prompto muttered.

And then it was Ignis’s turn to find his brain stalling out of the conversation.

He managed nothing more than one sputtering laugh to defend himself, leaning his head into a hand. At the sound, Prompto jerked his head up from whispering his bow along the gently depressed string and looked mortified all over again. “Oh my God,” he stammered, “I didn’t—”

“I believe the phrase is ‘called out’?” Ignis said.

Prompto’s laugh sounded much more natural this time, like the familiar laughs he gave Noctis or Gladio.

A smudge blotted Ignis’s vision from where he had brushed against his glasses with his hand. He pulled them from his nose and wiped them clear with a cloth from his pocket. When he replaced his spectacles and restored his vision, he found that Prompto’s smile was different when it was genuine, too. In a move perhaps unbefitting what he considered his typical demeanor, he reciprocated the smile.

He thought perhaps the room had gotten a bit warmer, but it felt pleasant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1 I tried Googling an image for this and found several forums where violinists were complaining about how they had seen people do this and it was terrifying, but no photos. I thought about taking a picture with my own viola and music stand and then just got really scared, so you'll have to use your imagination with [this](http://airdeari.tumblr.com/post/173838221807/sorry-everyone-i-need-to-post-this-horrific-and). [return to text]
> 
> 2 Sorry. (I'm not sorry.) [return to text]
> 
> 3 **natural and false harmonics:** So we've touched on (ha) harmonics in previous chapters, but for string players there is the concept of both natural and false harmonics. Where natural harmonics rely on the acoustics of the string, false harmonics can be created on any note by pressing down with one finger and then lightly touching the string, harmonic style, with another finger higher up on the string. For the physicists reading, this plays the fourth partial. For the non-physicists reading, I'm so sorry for all of the words that are about to happen out of Ignis's mouth. [return to text]


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like I should make it clear that it's entirely unnecessary to read the footnotes. They're just flavor text if you want an explanation for some of the more in-depth terminology I keep throwing around because I'm terrible.
> 
> I feel like I should have said that before I subjected anyone to chapter 2.
> 
> I'm probably going to update the chapter notes at the beginning of the work...

To Noctis’s small relief, neither Dr. Amicitia nor the upperclassman packing up her violin seemed at all surprised to see Gladio burst into the studio, sans shirt, with another topless boy in tow. Parading bare-chested through the halls of the music school back and forth to the office had exhausted Noctis enough that, once they got back to the rehearsal room, he let Gladio wrangle his arms again without protest. They stood in front of the full length mirror, Gladio towering over Noctis from behind, as he fashioned the violin with various cushions and shoulder rests[1] to see how they fit. His hands on Noctis’s back, shoulders, and arm had gone quickly from a jarring invasion of a stranger to a familiar, friendly touch. The untangled knot between Noctis’s shoulder blade and his spine probably had something to do with that transition.

“You ever tried a centered chin rest?” Gladio asked.

“I’ve only ever had—wait, shoulder rest or chin rest?” Noctis asked.

“Chin rest. You seen my viola, how the chin rest is centered on the tailpiece?”[2]

Noctis shivered as he watched and felt Gladio’s finger trail along the left side of his jaw. Gladio’s shirt was still lying on the ground, and Noctis’s right beside. That, too, changed something about touch, but Noctis refused to think about it.

“And see where you’re puttin’ your chin,” he said in his low, rumbling voice. “Right on the tailpiece. Barely even usin’ the chinrest you got now. Can’t believe no one ever told you to try a different one.”

Noctis lowered his violin, peering through the ƒ-holes to catch a glimpse of the date on the yellowed business card inside the body of the instrument, handwritten in faded ink back in 1756. “You don’t just… swap out the chinrest on an instrument like this,” he said doubtfully.

“Sure you do. Think I got a tool in my case for those screws, I could take it off right now.” He had a bad habit of patting Noctis on the back way too hard for men of such drastically different sizes. “You think that’s the same chinrest this baby’s had all these years? Doubt it.”

“Whenever you gentlemen would like to replace your clothing and continue rehearsal is fine,” called Ignis, over the sound of Prompto’s stifled laughter.

Gladio still did not replace his shirt. After dropping back into his chair, he tossed his small cloth over his shoulder, settled his viola atop it, and nestled his jaw into his centered chinrest. Noctis once again made lingering eye contact with the bird sprawling across Gladio’s ample back.

“I believe you may have missed a few of my words, Gladio?” Ignis said with a smirk.

“Didn’t sound real important,” Gladio replied, gliding the tip of his bow over his strings in pairs to check the tuning.

“People didn’t even bat an eye at us,” Noctis groaned. “How often do you think he does this?”

“Run out of a practice room with another guy, half-naked?” Prompto snickered.

“Who might be the next victim?” Ignis mused, and Noctis absolutely shouldn’t have looked at Prompto right then, but he did, collarbones and freckled shoulders and sinewy arms.

“He already got my shirt off at the gym,” Prompto protested. “Iggy’s next.”

Ignis scoffed, shifting his cello closer to his body as he settled into a resting position. Gladio set his viola back on his knee and slid a long, quiet smile to Ignis, one with gentle, wandering eyes.

“Nah,” said Gladio, “I only go prowlin’ around with guys I look good standing next to. Gets me dates easier.”

“ _Hey._ ” Noctis wove his foot between the stalks of the music stands to give Gladio a hard nudge to the shin.

“Iggy, though, I don’t need to take his shirt off to see he’s gonna give me a run for my money,” Gladio teased, giving the cellist a light jab in his broad, full shoulder. “He’s gonna pick up more dates than me if I ain’t careful. Look at ’im.”

Noctis did as he was told. When Ignis, slightly flushed but smirking, drew his arms closer to his body, it pulled tighter creases in the fresh, silky shirt that ran straight along his perfect angles, except where it hugged to the warmth of his muscles rounding out his upper arms and sloping up to his neck. It was the end of a long Friday, and the only hairs out of place along his bronze forehead seemed to be perfectly, artfully laid.

“Nah, there’s no way he’s taking any dates,” Prompto said, breaking that brief silence. “I bet he’s got a sweet girlfriend back in England, right?”

Ignis closed his eyes and let out a soft, rueful laugh. “A girlfriend, no,” he repeated sardonically.

“A fiancée?” Noctis guessed.

Ignis chuckled. He pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose as he lowered his head. “Not so, either, I’m afraid.”

“C’mon, of course not,” Gladio said, rolling his eyes at the freshmen before turning in his seat to Ignis. “Obviously, you’ve got a _boyfriend_.”

Prompto buried his mouth in the back of his hand to stifle some kind of sound, somewhere between a yelp and a laugh. The smile that Noctis could see creeping up behind his hand was an anxious one.

But Ignis’s was an open, unguarded laugh, one that made him give up and pull his glasses from his face altogether. “Closer to the point,” he admitted, “but, no, I must admit I’m simply unattached.”

_Closer to the point_. Noctis’s head whirled around those words with wonder, at how casually Gladio had asked, and how easily Ignis had answered. It was at this moment that high school suddenly seemed a world away. College no longer felt like an extension of one of his fancy summer music camps. It was a sphere of intellectualism, of maturity, of the growth of people and of ideas.

Gladio was stuck frozen on a different point altogether.

“Unattached,” he repeated. “You mean, you’re not dating anybody.”

“That’s about the size of it,” Ignis said. A small crease of confusion was coming between his eyebrows.

“You mean, _you_ , perfect Ignis, world-class cellist, smart as fuck, drop-dead gorgeous, perfect hair, perfect tailored clothes Ignis Scientia,” Gladio said, his voice raised almost to the point of anger, “doesn’t have anybody he’s seeing right now.”

Ignis parted his lips but no words came out. Noctis would never have known he could look so flustered, and he would have thought this was as peachy-pink as his chiseled cheeks would go if Gladio didn’t have one more thing to say, and perhaps if he didn’t say it so very seriously.

“Ignis, will you go out to dinner with me tonight?”

The room went dead silent. The soundproofing panels on the walls and ceiling sucked out even the ring from the air. It was just Gladio’s fist clenching tighter against his pant leg as he awaited Ignis’s response, Ignis reeling from the shock of a handsome shirtless man coming onto him so earnestly and politely, and Noctis rearranging his entire worldview to categorize people as tough as Gladio and as flawless as Ignis into the same place he used to be so uncomfortable to find himself.

And then it was Prompto whispering, “Say yes.”

Gladio’s eyes flicked away from Ignis at last to take a glance at Prompto, and then the nerves he was channeling into his tight fist spilled out into a nervous tugging at the corner of his lips, one that made his cheeks begin to flush, too. That was all it took for Ignis to come back with a  confident smile, albeit a breathless laugh, and raise his eyebrows. Gladio let his grin burn on his face. His eyebrows repeated his question in a more pleading tone, all wrinkled and pitiful. It was at the instant that he pulled his lower lip between his teeth and began to bite that Ignis inhaled deeply, then sighed, “I would be a fool to say no.”

“Good thing you’re the smartest guy I’ve ever met,” Gladio said, breathing out relief, while Prompto screamed, “ _Yes!_ ”

“Huh, damn, guess we better quit rehearsal early,” Noctis said, looking at his bare wrist in lieu of a watch, “since you guys have to get ready for your, uh, your big date.”

“Oh, fat chance,” Gladio said, picking his viola back up.

“Noctis _is_ suffering from a shoulder injury,” Ignis pointed out, already loosening his bow. “Might be best to let him rest rather than aggravate it further.”

“Pleeeeaaaase?” Prompto begged, with the biggest, most compelling puppy-dog eyes, deep blue and sparkling. “Oh my gosh, I hope you guys keep dating, then I can call you the quartet Mom and Dad out loud and not just in my head.”

It worked like a charm. Gladio’s nose wrinkled and his lips tightened and twisted. “Alright, never say that again, and”—he barely had to lift his foot to give Noct’s shin a nudge in return—“ _you_ promise to stretch, and we’ll call it a day.”

Prompto cheered, Noctis joked that he hadn’t promised anything yet, and rehearsal drifted to a cozy stop regardless. Prompto scooted his case closer to Noctis’s as he packed up, stealing glances over his shoulder as Ignis and Gladio kept up their usual banter and gushing in whispers to Noctis about hidden double meanings he was absolutely imagining more than interpreting.

They followed each other to their lockers in succession, a habit born out of their inability to run out of things to talk about. Noctis stopped at his locker first, packing his violin inside, while Prompto hovered, still bubbling over with words as if keeping them to himself for the past few hours of rehearsal might have set him too far back to meet his daily quota. The two of them talked all the way to Prompto’s locker, where Noctis would pull more of his weight in the conversation so that Prompto could concentrate on remembering the string of numbers to open his locker. More often than not, Noctis would get him distracted halfway through the combination, and he’d have to start over once or twice.

However, the way Prompto left off when they got to his locker today was a quiet, “I didn’t even know Gladio was gay.”

Noctis swallowed. All he saw was the back of Prompto’s head when he said it, and he wished he could rewind to see the expression that had crossed his face. Perhaps it was a wrinkle of the nose, a disgust he hid underneath his overly energetic cheering when he had to deal with it face to face. Perhaps it was a genuine smile of true support. Perhaps it was the cautious flicker of eyes, a look like the one Noctis had worn, wondering who else in this school was like him.

The only expression he had now was blank concentration as he turned the dial of his lock.

“I-I mean, I guess he could be bi, or…” Prompto’s fingers twitched. “You know, I just… I didn’t know he liked… guys, is the thing. I didn’t know.”

Noctis couldn’t tell if Prompto’s lips were tight from nerves or from concentrating on lining up the last digit before he pulled the lock open.

“Me either,” Noctis said, because it felt quiet, and he didn’t know what else to say.

“Like, if I knew that?” Prompto said, sliding his violin case off of his shoulder. “I might’ve… I dunno. I mean, you know how we go to the gym sometimes? I didn’t know he was—y’know.”

Prompto turned away from Noctis at that moment to shove his violin in the locker with a bump of his hip. It was too quiet to hear his tone. It could have just as easily been awe as it could have been mild surprise, uneasy discomfort, or visceral disgust.

“He was kind of… I guess, maybe… flirting with me?” Prompto said, scratching his head with the arm that hid his face from view. “I mean, I think, maybe he was. If I knew he was gay, I would’ve…”

“Would’ve what?” Noctis asked.

Prompto lowered his hand. His face was a lush, rosy pink, and his lips were pinker from chewing nervously.

“I mean… what could I have done, huh?” he said with a sheepish laugh. “Ask him out? He’s way out of my league, I couldn’t…”

At this point his eyes did a wary search of Noctis’s face. Noctis smiled, but not too much, because for some reason he still felt nervous smiling too much.

“Maybe just… show more interest, I guess,” Prompto mumbled. “If he asked me out… Y’know. I wouldn’t have said no.”

He shut the door of his locker in a silence that lasted longer than Noctis’s self-restraint.

“What if I asked you out?”

The lock tumbled out of Prompto’s hand and hit the floor with a thunk. He did not bend over to reach it. Instead, he slowly turned his head to Noctis, eyes wide with what looked like horror.

“I mean,” Noctis went on, folding his arms, “is it just because it’s Gladio? Like… because he’s…”

Lacking the precise words, or perhaps the nerve to say the imprecise words—“good-looking”, or maybe just “hot”—he gestured up and down his torso, which was roughly half the size of Gladio’s, fully clothed, and not exactly a spectacle when stripped, either.

“Are you asking me out?” Prompto asked in a high voice. “Are you _really_ asking me out, or…?”

“No,” Noctis blurted. “Not—not really, I’m just…”

“Well. Then.” Prompto clutched his backpack to his chest, hands wringing the straps like he didn’t remember how to put them over his shoulders. “Then I don’t _know_ what I’d say. Because… it’s not really happening, so. Who knows what I’d do?”

The tangle of words rolled up into knots in Noctis’s ears. It was only after a pause, and after Prompto had taken one awkward step back, that he managed to say, “What?”

“You—you know how it is, right?” Prompto squeaked, taking another step back. His eyes were darting all over the hallway. “You just, it’s, you don’t know how you’d really react unless you’re there, and it’s really happening to you, and—uh, see you next week? I mean, have a good weekend!”

With his backpack straps still tangled in his hands, his padlock still lying on the floor next to his unsecured locker, and his feet faster than a blink of the eye, Prompto flew down the hallway, almost bowling over a freshman euphonium player and slamming straight through enough vocalists to constitute a small ensemble. Every time he threw an apology over his shoulder, he primed himself to run into someone else while he wasn’t looking in front of him.

Then he was gone, and in his place was the flutter of good-natured laughter floating over an incredulous murmur. Noctis slunk to the side of the hall before anyone could trace the commotion back to him. He hooked Prompto’s combination lock back onto his locker door and shut it with a sigh.

He had the dark thought that this disaster proved he was still keeping up his old lucky streak with romance. It would have taken fewer hours of video games to stop thinking about that, had he had a friend to play with.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1 **shoulder rest:** Just realized I never explained what a shoulder rest is last chapter. Most players put some kind of cushion or device between the violin/viola and their shoulder for comfort. [This sponge](http://www.childrensmusicworkshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/sponge-rest.png) is the super cheap, super common one that most students are given to start out, attached to the instrument with a large rubber band. The curve follows the shape of the body down from the top of the shoulder, over the collarbone, towards the left pec. [This](https://www.johnsonstring.com/images-for-products/accessories/SRVAKUNBRAC_BT-large.jpg) is (a fancy version of) probably the most common type of shoulder rest (and the "hard" type that Noctis uses). The rubber feet grip the edges of the instrument, and the supportive curve is sturdier than the foam sponge because it's backed with plastic (or wood, I guess??? this is so fancy. this is definitely the shoulder rest Noct has). [But there are many other options!](https://www.sharmusic.com/productimages/image.axd/i.1614/w.2000/h.2000/playonair+junior+violin+shoulder+rest_.jpg) [And this one is the worst thing I've ever seen!](http://acoustagrip.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Concert-Performer.jpg) [return to text]
> 
> 2 **chin rest:** Sort of self-explanatory, but [here's a picture of my babies for a visual reference](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DhsVZkdW0AAD2ab.jpg). Gladio's viola is like my viola (but bigger), where the chin rest is centered. Noct's violin, like most violins, is like my violin (but 15 times older and 20 times more expensive), where the chin rest is off to the side. I actually hold the violin and the viola a bit differently on my shoulder because of the size difference, so I only need the centered chin rest for my viola. [return to text]

**Author's Note:**

> Just in case you wanted it again. [here's the spotify playlist for songs linked in the footnotes.](https://open.spotify.com/user/1258090366/playlist/0rmk2nIPt791MZxENMrAkD?si=K5RPEKlpRmiRYYxdaKZwww) You might get spoilers in the fun format of songs I'm going to reference in the next few chapters.
> 
> Uhhh also me? I'm [meataphor on Twitter](http://twitter.com/meataphor) and [airdeari on tumblr](http://airdeari.tumblr.com). Come say hi?


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